Potato Soup

Yo do any of youse guys have a good vegetarian creamy potato soup recipe? I made this one and it was gross. I ended up adding a packet of onion soup mix, some garlic, some dried chives, and some sour cream and that made it palatable, but there's got to be a better recipe out there. Right?

vegan corn chowder

Here's how good this soup is: I made it yesterday, ate it for dinner, put some leftovers in the fridge, and froze the rest. I ate the fridge leftovers for lunch and thawed the freezer soup to eat tonight. MMMM.

I got the recipe from Food.com.

Also, I used my brand new Pampered Chef knife and it was AMAZING. I'd never used a good knife before and cutting with it made me feel like I had super chef powers.

Anyway. Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 yellow onion, diced (I used a whole one)
• 1/2 red bell pepper, diced (I used a whole one)
• 2 small carrots, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried sage (I used oregano instead)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• fresh black pepper
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 2 small russet potatoes, diced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne (I used 1/4)
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons soymilk
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup (I used honey)

Directions:

1. Sautee onions, pepper, and carrot in oil over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add herbs and salt, sautee a minute more.
2. Add corn, stock, potatoes, bay leaf, and cayenne. Cover and bring to a boil for 3 minutes.
3. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes, uncover and simmer for 7-10 minutes more.
4. Puree half of the chowder. Add soy milk, lemon, juice, and maple syrup. Stir to combine and serve.

 
  

Completely excellent.

peanut-yam soup

Recently, I attended a potluck where this was far and away the star dish. Everyone, myself included, raved about it. The chef confessed it was from a Moosewood cookbook, and I immediately went online to look for it and attempt to replicate it.

I ate leftovers of it today for both lunch and dinner and I'm still excited about it.

Anyway, here's the recipe. It's a little messy to make but totally worth it. And it makes a lot so you can freeze some for later. Or just bring it all to a potluck and show up everyone else.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chopped onions
• 1 tablespoon peanut oil or 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
• 1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh gingerroot (you can peel ginger with the back of a spoon, if you had not already learned that from the Food Network!) 
• 1 cup chopped carrot
• 2 cups chopped sweet potatoes (up to 1 cup white potatoes can be substituted)
• 4 cups vegetable stock or 4 cups water (I used half stock and half water, cuz I ran out of vegetable stock. It was fine)
• 2 cups tomato juice
• 1 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 tablespoon sugar (optional... I used honey)
• 1 cup chopped scallions or 1 cup chives  (I didn't use these)

 So... first cut everything. I tried to cut it as I went along and it ended up a little chaotic. Then start sauteeing the onions in the bottom of your soup pot for a few minutes. Then add the cayenne and ginger. Then add the carrots and sautee for a few MORE minutes. Then add the sweet potatoes (and regular potatoes if you are using them) and the stock or water and bring everything to a boil, then let it simmer for 15 minutes.

Then blend all of that with the tomato juice with a food processor or immersion blender if you have one, or with a shitty regular blender if you are like me.

Ugh it looks disgusting in this phase. It gets better, I swear!

After it's blended, put it back in the soup pot and stir in the peanut butter. Taste it and add sugar or honey if you think it needs it. (I did.)

Then eat it because it will be so delicious!! Oh yeah and the recipe called for topping it with fresh chopped chives or scallions, but I had it that way at the potluck and I personally feel like it's better without them. But you can add them if you think you will like them.

Mmmm!

Seriously, I know I said the other spicy sweet potato soup recipe was the best soup ever, but I think this is the NEW best soup ever until further notice.

Creamy Portobello Mushroom Soup

This is from the Student's Go Vegan Cookbook and it is way, way better than canned cream of mushroom soup. Which, who even eats that? No one.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 onion (you guys know how I feel about the partial vegetable issue... I used a whole onion and it was FINE. But I just thought I'd let you know that the cookbook says a half)
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 1 thinly sliced carrot
• 1 diced celery stalk
• 1 chopped portobello mushroom
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried marjoram (I didn't have marjoram and I looked on the Internets and found that you can use ~1/3 the amount of oregano in place of marjoram, so I did that)
• 2 cups vegetable broth
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 2 cups soy milk
• 2 tsp soy sauce (I think I might reduce the it to 1 tsp next time I make it--to me it tastes a little too soy saucy as is)
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

I bought these cute Porteenie mushrooms since they were cheaper, and I was going to cut them up anyway! I used three of them instead of 1 grownup portobello.

Also, I just used all the leftover carrots and celery from a veggie plate at party so I think it was too much carrot and not enough celery, but whatevs! It tasted great and got all those veggies outta my fridge.

Anyway, what you do is heat the oil in the bottom of your soup pot and sautee all the veggies with the garlic, salt and marjoram (or oregano) for 10 minutes, stirring frequently so they don't burn to the bottom of the pot.

MEANWHILE set aside 1/4 cup of broth. Add the flour and stir into a paste.

After the vegetables have sauteed, add the rest of the broth, the milk, the soy sauce, and the cayenne. Bring it to a boil, and then slowly add the flour paste while stirring. After all the flour is stirred in, lower the heat, cover and simmer for about 10 minutes. Yum!

AMAZING spicy sweet potato soup

OK this is from The Student's Go Vegan Cookbook, which called it "Chilean Two-Potato Soup" but I renamed it spicy sweet potato soup. I doubt it's even from Chile. Whatev. It was reallllly good. Probably the best soup I've ever made. Maybe the best soup I've ever eaten. So good.

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 cup minced onion (I just used 1 average sized onion, IDK if it was 1/2 a cup or not)
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 1 cup diced sweet potato (again, I just used 1 sweet potato. Who the fuck would cut up a potato, measure out a cup, and then save the rest? For what? Whatev.)
• 1 diced red potato
• 1 4-oz can green chilies
• 1 cup corn kernels (I used a little can)
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 1/2 tsp thyme (but I didn't have any)
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (but I didn't have any so I used a couple shakes of crushed red pepper)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Fresh lemon or lime juice

Heat the oil in the bottom of a big pot and sautee the onion and garlic for a few minutes, then throw in everything else except the lemon juice. Bring it to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes ish. Add a little lemon juice to the soup as you serve it. (Except I didn't do that part either because FUCK LEMON JUICE. Yeah, I said it.)

 This is perfect for the winter. Warm and filling and spicy and colorful. Make it today! Make it RIGHT NOW.

LARG

So, in my college dining hall we had this one delicious soup on the menu rotation. It was called "lentil and roasted garlic soup," but we referred to it as LARG. I realize "LARG" is not an appetizing name for a soup. LARG also did not have an appetizing appearance. It looked a lot like sewer sludge. However, it was DELICIOUS. One of the very best things on the (admittedly mediocre) dining hall menu rotation.

And then, my junior year I think, they changed food providers and WE LOST LARG. Until now, kind of? My friend Molly found a LARG recipe in a cookbook and she & I both made it and have been discussing how best to recreate the LARG of our college days.

Ingredients

• 1 whole head of garlic
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• a couple of carrots, chopped
• 2 teaspoons dried rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pound French lentils
• 8 cups vegetable stock or mineral water (I used vegetable Better than Boullion to make the stock)
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 
• 1 teaspoon minced fresh garlic 

Disclosure: I didn't have any rosemary or balsamic vinegar. I'm not fancy, gosh.

Anyway, first heat the oil in a big pot and add the onions, carrots, and celery for a few minutes. Then add the s&p and bay leaves. And the rosemary if you have any. Then add the broth and lentils, bring it to a boil and let it simmer for an hour or until the lentils are tender. (If this happens before your garlic finishes roasting, take it off the heat.)

MEANWHILE roast a head of garlic. I used elephant garlic and it was pretty awesome. I realized I didn't have any foil so I put in in a bread pan and covered it with a cookie sheet and some olive oil. Kind of ghetto, but it worked!

Then, put the roasted garlic in a blender or food processor, maybe with a little water. Once it's blended add it to your soup along with the fresh minced garlic and the vinegar (if you have it) and bring it back up to a boil for a few minutes.

And then it's done, hooray! I made it when my college friend Julia was here and we both agreed it would be more college-authentic if you blended the whole thing to make it more sludgey. However, your mileage may vary, because maybe you don't want your soup to resemble sewer sludge for some reason??

Needs to be sludgier.

My cat Duarte approves. Or at least does not blatantly disapprove.

vegan butternut squash bisque

Oh my God, this was so delicious.

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
3 cups vegetable stock
2 diced onions (or 1 big one)
1/2 cup soy milk (or cream)
1 Tbsp Smart Balance (or butter if you want to un-veganify this)
Cumin, curry powder, and cinnamon
Salt & pepper
Olive oil (I use the spray)

So, first cut the squash in half (lengthwise) and put it flat-side down on an olive oil'd baking sheet and bake it at 375 for 45 minutes or so. 20 minutes before the squash is done, start cooking the onions in the butter or fake butter at the bottom of a pot. Let them turn brown but not burnt. It should take about 20 minutes. Like I said. Pay attention, jeeze.

After the squash is done scrape all the squash off the skin with a spoon and put them in the pot with the onions. Then add the vegetable stock and spices (OK I didn't measure these, I just did like three good shakes of each one. I used this recipe as a base and it suggested using only nutmeg, but I didn't have any nutmeg, and also some of the comments on the recipe suggesting using the spices I ended up using). Bring it up to a boil and let it simmer for half an hour or so.

Then, be super careful and put it in the blender with half a cup of soy milk. (Or cream, if you want it to be, well, creamier, and don't care about un-vegan-ifiying it. By the way, I used vanilla soy milk since that's what I keep around. I was a little worried it would make my soup taste too vanilla-y, but it didn't really come out in the soup at all.) If it's still hot, you should put a dish towel over the top of the blender and hold it down, because blending hot liquids will make the top of the blender fly off!! It's true, I read it on the Internet. Or wait until it cools. Or get a fancy immersion blender. Whatever.

I tried really hard to get a photo of this that made it look delicious but it is not a terribly photogenic food. TRUST ME IT'S AWESOME.

Anyway, this soup tastes totally super awesome. I ate it with some of the bread I made from the recipe I made last week and it was like being in a restaurant. A super awesome restaurant.

PS I also toasted the squash seeds in olive oil just like pumpkin seeds. They were a little smaller than pumpkin seeds but tasted basically the same.

let's talk about chili!

I love chili! And it's soo easy to make. In college I looked up a recipe for chili because I had no idea what I was doing. The recipe I found called for a packet of onion soup powder mix, which tastes awesome in chili (but that stuff is too expensive in the DR). My mom likes to put Reese's peanut butter cups in chili, but I feel this is a waste of Reese's peanut butter cups. What are your CHILI SECRETS? Tell me them.

Here's a super basic vegetarian chili recipe. I just made it yesterday with what I had lying around. It was delicious! The recipe is nothing special, but it's a place to start if you've never made chili before.

Ingredients:
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 onion
some garlic
hot sauce to taste (I use three or four good shakes)
pepper to taste
(At home, I loved to put celery in chili! But celery is hard to find in the DR.)

First, chop the onion and garlic and sautee them together in a little bit of oil.

When the onions turn clear, take them off the heat. Dump all the ingredients into a pot. Don't drain the beans or tomatoes, just pour the liquids into the pot too. I don't add any water besides the tomato and bean juice.

Yumm. Bring it up to a boil and let it simmer for like half an hour. Stir it occasionally or it will burn to the bottom of your pot. Trust me :( Anyway, that's it! You made chili!

But wait! There is the question of chili TOPPINGS. Some people say sour cream. Others, shredded cheese. Or corn chips. Of course, none of these are terribly healthy. Nutritionally speaking, your chili is better off without any of those things. Whatevs! Here's my new favorite chili topping:

 

QUESO HOJUELITAS. Hojuelitas ("little sheets/pieces") are this awesome snack food that for some reason is not widely available in the US. It's basically a combination of a Cheeto and a Frito. And they are perfect on chili.

Yum!